by the way, i did check the archived discussion about this, but i am specifically looking to save the exact same camera view as a rendered image, and superimpose an outlined drawing over the top - thus, the autoCAD method would require some difficult perspective matching.

isn't there just a rendering engine or export command available?

There is a plugin for max/viz called swift render from electric rain. It outputs vector based images.

also the mental ray renderer which came with max has a hidden line renderer. Which version of max are you using?

The plugin reedtimothy recommends, swift, is very cool too.

Illustrate plug-in is nice

here's a cheap ghetto-rigged way of doing it. Make a copy of your entire model, convert to mesh, add the make Edges modifier. Apply a 100 percent black material to the edges and a 100 percent white material to the model mesh. render.

thanks all for the suggestions, i've taken a look at a few of the plug-ins and am working on a way to get my hands on them. i am using 3DS 7 - are there any problems with using these plugins on version 7 or should i downgrade to 6?

how do you use the mental ray hidden line feature?

Illustrate! plugin. No problems with 3ds max 7.

link

Illustrate it pretty cool as well!

To use mental ray in max (versio 6, though this should be the same for version 7), get your view ready and open the render options window. In the "common" tab, go down to "Assign Renderer." Next to "production" you will see the Default Scaline Renderer. Next to that to the right will be a box you can click on to select the mentall ray Renderer. Go ahead and select it. Now under that, in the presets, go to "Load Preset" and select "mental.ray.hidden.line.contours.rps." This will load up the hidden line renderer. Go ahead and render something.

If you're looking for a hidden line vector render, 3D studio is kindof lacking... But if you export to a .dwg (capped) you can then open in AutoCAD, it will save the camera views from MAX, or you can 3d rotate to find a view, set it to "hidden line view", and you can print the view to an eps using poscript 2... Then edit it and play with it in 2D AutoCAD.

oh ya, in order to convert the .eps file to a .dwg, you can open it in Illustrator 10, and export .dwg

It seems like a lengthy process, but it actually works pretty well... You can take advantage of 3D studio's modelling, and get a 2d editable hidden line for autocad, pretty clean without too much junk...

you can also export a vector file (.eps) with Mental Ray. just look into contour shading under the user reference. This does a decent job, but sucks if you want to actually color the shapes in illustrator.

Swift 3d is the best in my opinion out of those listed above.

on a similar note, can anyone explain the process of making a hidden line rendering in Rhino 3.0 from a perspective/camera view? preferably as a vector output so that I can edit it in illustrator?

Ahhhh I love emule

final toon is a great tool... you'll need to learn it first, and you can get vector output.

doesn't max 7 have a toon shader?

As far back as Max 5, I think, Ink 'n Paint materials have been available. It won't give you a vector output, but it's very nice for hidden wire/toon shaded images. Depending on the number of paint levels you assign, you can achieve lighting affects (or a lack thereof) and create some really nice images. But as I said, it's a raster output. Lineweights can be controlled on an object-by-object basis by adjusting the ink widths.

.mm

max 7 has Ink 'n Paint material which is practical enough.
also u can use brazil toon materials or Cebas FinalToon as said mmatt